


A Guide to Fearing

by caesthetics



Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Difference, Alien Biology, Anal Sex, Angst and Porn, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Established Relationship, First Time, M/M, Master/Pet, Mirror Sex, Monsterfucking, OTTO IS EXPLICITLY 16, Porn With Plot, Possession, References to Depression, Shapeshifting, Size Difference, Symbionts, Symbiotic Relationship, Teen Angst, Xenophilia, Yaoi, ergo the underage tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:00:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27128245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caesthetics/pseuds/caesthetics
Summary: To summon a Guide is to seal a promise: one's waking self for the promise of a life well-lived. It's under the pretense of escapism that Otto calls upon the symbiont, and then a lack of self-preservation that he gives himself to the pleasure of its shadowy form.Or, more bluntly put: Local boy gets fucked by his shape-shifting monster boyfriend.
Relationships: Monster(s)/Male Original Character(s), Tentacle Monster/Original Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just casually uploading all my xeno concepts because *that's all I write, apparently.* This one's set in modern day, and will involve a lot of depressive musings on top of the gratuitous monster-fucking. Please review the tags before reading, thank you!

\- - -

Otto hears his mom pull the car from the driveway and waves to her-- piña colada in one hand, steering wheel in the other. Beneath the Malibu sun, the minivan and its surfboards practically glow in a haze of bright white. She drives slow at first, swerves around the cul-de-sac to say her good byes to the kids on their slip and slides, the lady with seven cats, the couple from Sweden... and when the engine picks-up and makes its way to the main street and he's sure she won't turn back, Otto turns the blinds close.

He stands in the darkness of his room. There's a pause before it speaks, the whisper low and breathy against his ear.

It asks: "Are you ready?"

His Guide had brought it up when it'd learned of her vacation-- casually, as if this sort of thing was a thing normal couples did, sneaking around behind one or the other's parents. He's seen it on TV and from hearsay at school and it knows that Otto's thought about it. Everything flows like water, from his mind to the entity's… and it's embarrassing but also kind of exciting, being linked so intimately.

Around the Guide, Otto can be himself.

Lonely and pathetic, but also loved and wanted, even if Otto realizes its pretense.

He shakes it off because he _is_ ready. Otto wants this and is grateful for an experience he wouldn't get from anyone or anything else.

The shadows drift from his feet to focus itself into a figure his height. The silhouette is pitch black against the shade.

It says: "Show me."

\--

His fingers go stiff over the hem of his T-shirt and Otto pulls the entire thing off in a few awkward moves. The weight of the monster's judgment is overwhelming, as he reaches for his belt line and then the elastic of his underwear. From the corner of his eye, the boy catches his body in profile from the closet mirror-- Freckled. Gangly. Small. There's a reason the Guide doesn't say much, and he barely looks at himself outside of the shower or when he's changing for the morning or at night.

"I... uh..."

"Sssh.... don't think." Long, shadowy fingers move past his cheek to cradle him by the scalp. Its touch is cooler than how he thinks a person might feel, the tongue that slips past his lips as well.

They've kissed like this before. On his bed, in the dead-of-night, with the full weight of the monster pressed over him. He always stops it with one of his halfhearted excuses, before it gets too much. I want to but.

_Mom might wake up._

_It's a school night._

_I can't risk it. Sorry._

And it's gracious enough to pull itself back, content itself with just kissing, sometimes feeling him up through his clothes. Otto considers himself lucky that it’s so patient even if he can't understand why it still bothers with him.

It bites his lip and Otto flinches, pulling back. "A-ah... sorry."

There's a hum of disapproval. But, those hands bring themselves over the bumps of his spine, lowering them to his waist. Otto shudders as they roam from his ass and back up his sides. A backwards step and then he's pressed back onto his bed, staring back at a shadow that grows and reshapes until he's the size of someone familiar.

Otto opens his mouth to protest, but he's quieted with a thicker, more forceful tongue. "You're so much cuter like this," it says.

He blinks back tears and shakes his head. The mouth trails to the base of his neck, wet and hungry against the skin.

"I don't think anyone realizes how cute you are. How lucky that I have you all to myself."

\--

Mom has a thing for scruffy, salt-of-earth kinda guys, the ones that work at construction sites and shipyards. Something about being over intellectuals and wanting easier, less pretentious men in her life. Joe's typical for her and Otto thinks he's one of the better looking ones of her Match.com line-up. Tall, broad-shouldered barrel-chested with a salt and pepper beard and an easy laugh. Sometimes, he'll stop by for game night or for take-out, call him skipper as he makes eyes at his mom.

Otto's face burns with shame as the shadow squeezes his cock.

"It's good, isn't it...?" The monster brings Otto into its lap, a position that calls his attention to the bulge, grinding at his ass. "I know what suits my cute little boyfriend better than anyone else."

When its free hand tweaks his nipple, Otto thrashes. Has that part of him always been so sensitive--?

He feels the weight of the Guide's smile from behind him; both hands finding their pace to work through the initial shock, urges Otto's body against the shape of a man older than his father. Perhaps, a part of himself thinks, the Guide's unmasked some stray thought Otto might have had some boat-ride Wednesday or Saturday afternoon. It tilts Otto's face to kiss him bits of shadowy beard brushing over his chin and--

He must have come too close because all at once, the Guide pulls back, and he's forced to return to himself: dazed and wanting on his sheets, having almost cum to someone he'd considered the furthest thing from a lover. His face is hot, his legs twitching... And, Otto shakes his head, fumbling over his glasses to apologize and reorient himself for having let himself get so worked-up.

He's pushed back over before he can, his back hitting something softer than his mattress.

Otto's heart jumps.

A string of tendrils arch his hips forward while another set tightens around knees, folding his legs back and spreading them apart. When he squirms, he finds that his shoulders, his neck and chest are locked still by a thick, shadowy mass.

"You're even prettier like this, my pet.

But, you're afraid. Would you rather him? Over me? Hmm...?"

Hurriedly, Otto shakes his head.

A set of tendrils worms through his hair, pushing it back to appreciate its work. Somewhere along the way, his glasses must've fallen off but. This close, he sees the Guide's dark, amorphous face, bits of it falling and reforming as it stares back. It smiles, pleased. A wisp of smoke connects the top of its mouth to its bottom half.

"I want our first time to be special, Otto," it croons, pressing a kiss over his throat. "You trust me, don't you?"

Otto tries to speak. He suffices a shaky nod.

"...Good boy."

The tendrils split and spin, a smaller pair to pinch and knead at his chest and a blunt chord of thick, slimy tentacles to pump his cock and stretch him. The intrusion's weird at first, makes his toes curl and his knees turn inward from discomfort. But, the Guide keeps things slow for him, stroking his thighs as he takes another, thicker tendril... and Otto's grateful for that too, even if he doesn't know how much more he can take.

"So pretty. If only you could see yourself as I do.”

And then it starts to _move._

The boy gapes, the friction turning his stomach and making him curl into himself. These things are everywhere, pulsating, thrusting and it's so much all at once that Otto's nerves get the better of him. "P-please... V-Viorre-- a-ah..."

"You love it, don't you?" it whispers. "How good you must feel right now." The tentacles tighten between his legs, follows the mount in speed, deep and claiming.

It does, eventually, when Otto's gone limp from struggling, forced to just take whatever the Guide gives. A weight pushes over Otto, leverage to engulf him more completely. His vision comes in and out, barely registering the change in angle.

"So quick," it chides. His face is brought up for another kiss. "We're going to have to train you to last longer than that..."

His arms and legs are moved to wrap around the mass as it rocks into him and he thinks that he might die from overwhelm-- his voice high and needy with both pleasure and fear. Their joining lasts for what feels like hours, mindless praises echoing within the recesses of his mind, heating his cheeks from the vibration of its timbre.

"You take me beautifully though." An appreciative hand moves over his thigh, dark against the paleness of Otto's skin.

"Such a good boy.

So _lovely_."

... And then it finally, _finally_ stops.

Whatever fills him is sticky, creamy and warm. Otto can't decide if he likes it.

But. They remain that way as Otto catches a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, glad that all he sees through his tears is a blank and comforting darkness.

\--

He wakes to beat of water against his face. His head throbs, heavy with the fatigue-- and the sound of the shower seems so distant in spite knowing he's seated on its floor, breathing in its steam. He stumbles as he picks himself up, legs too weak to support his own weight. Between them, a stream of thick, translucent gunk drips downward and onto the tile: a reminder of Viorre's claim.

A flush. He looks over himself, traces the marks around his wrists, his waist, his thighs. When his fingers move over his neck, the skin they touch is tender.

There comes an embrace from behind. He flinches back from embarrassment.

"So soon, my pet?"

The Guide's hands move over his crotch with quiet familiarity. Another set thumbs circles over his stomach, slowly, sensually.

He shakes his head.

"An entire week with Otto, all to myself," it sighs. "But, I want you to want this. And you do, don't you?"

"Y-yes. B-but not right now."

"No?" The disappointment is so distinct within its voice that Otto almost forgets the pain.

"But l-later...! Later is fine. And you can stay here too just.

...Sorry."

"Mmm... shame. But, it can't be helped." Those hands withdraw. When Otto tries another apology, only an echo sounds in response.

"...Viorre?

...Hello?" His eyes start to sting. Otto hangs his head, slumping back into the shower.

Lonely and pathetic, but this time, just to himself.

The rest of the shower passes in silence. When the faucet squeaks off and he pads past the mirror, his eyes avert themselves from the reflection. There's an odd, physical emptiness that brings to mind how things were prior to its summoning.

\--

His mother had once told him that the friends that mattered came after high school when people grew into themselves proper. She met dad as a kid, after all. Neighbors. Things made sense until they didn't and they tried to make things work up until they couldn't. Such was the nature of human relationships, each had said-- his mother in French, his father through objects in a philosophical proof.

Otto doesn't understand how anyone can be so patient, especially as the days drag by. Freshman year, he strikes a conversation over an alien-sighting; sophomore year, he manages a few others when his classmates had noticed his knack for history and calculus. But they all withdraw eventually, self-contained and impenetrable from within their own groups. He thinks the strata must have formed during a party or a conference he wasn't invited to. He wonders what they must have been like.

Still, Otto keeps himself busy.

When he commits himself to something, his studies, his paranormal research or his YouTube channel, it's easy to follow the wisdom of his parents and prioritize one's self. The truest of constants.

\--

Otto shrugs on a set of new house clothes and makes his way to the kitchen to microwave a Hungry Man dinner. He manages swallow the half of it before wrapping things up for tomorrow's breakfast.

He can't face his bed tonight, so he curls up on the couch. The TV switches on and he thumbs through his phone-- the same pictures of cryptids and basements over and over until he's staring back into nothing.

\--

"You could stand to eat better, my pet."

Otto finds his glasses from the accent table and sits up. The Guide speaks as if it's been with him this entire time, so Otto resists the urge from making things awkward with another apology. "Ah... yeah. Couldn't think straight last night."

"Can't walk straight either." A heat returns to Otto's cheeks, the pride in its voice unmistakable. "...not that it matters."

The shadow manifests next to him, bringing its hands around his waist. The kiss over his collarbone is chaste, close enough to affection that Otto could be fooled by it. He nods with a shaky "Y-yes..."

It takes his invitation, pushing him back. The shape isn't anything distinct-- about the size of his shadow stretched by the afternoon sun.

"But what shall we do today...? Hm...?" Those hands move under his shirt, teasing his nipples in a way it knows Otto likes. "I've fantasized about this for so long, you know. Ever since I first saw you."

He sees the lie for what it is. Even if the water flows one way, Otto isn't so stupid to believe that it'd put so much effort into him for nothing. Physiologically-speaking, there's no reason for something like that to be attracted to a person like him. But, when he thinks to his own future, the timeline stops at 19.

No one waits for him on the other side of graduation and nothing about him changes to appeal him to anyone else more than he does now, aged 16.

And it's fine, really.

Expectations sit at the heart of suffering, and being fake-wanted at least comes with all the physicality of being really wanted.

He opens his mouth when Viorre leans down to kiss him, shadowy tendrils falling like a curtain over his face.

"...The kitchen" it says. "I want you in the kitchen."

\---

It fucks him over the counter, legs wrapped around its waist to balance over the ledge. The creature likes these shows of complicity, so Otto forces himself to make them clear. His head is bowed over its shoulder shy little a-ah's punctuating his cries for Viorre to take him deeper. Some tendrils thread their way up his back, goosebumps forming where they drift.

The monster reaches its 3rd climax that morning, riding it out into Otto's sore, twitching body. The sound is almost as vulgar as the sensation, new cum pushing out the old. But, Otto doesn't protest when it lays him onto the cold, hard tile and straddles him-- when it grows larger all over again, splits itself into two and then three.

A part of Viorre holds his wrists above his head as another prods his mouth open to take something hard and throbbing. His legs are spread and a tendril wraps around his cock.

The week passes like this, Otto trying his best to keep himself attentive-- nodding as it asks to shift positions or move to another area of the house: bent over the couch, taken sweetly on his mother's bed.

He withdraws by Tuesday, nerves raw and over-saturated from the contrast of slow and methodical to quick and punishing. On Wednesday, it's like watching a film in first-person, Viorre taking the shape of his principal to have him on-top, riding its cock, a hand gripping his ass as the other slaps it.

—-

"I-IIIImmmmm baaacckkkkk~!"

Otto blinks, Mom's voice rising far above a week of spent silent. He steps down from the counter and puts away the Lysol wipes to manage a smile that he hopes reaches his eyes.

"Maui was ABSOLUTELY gorgeous this season... And, Paul was such a doll. Such the romantic. Beach walks, hula lessons... Ugh!" She tosses her hat onto the wooden monkey that served as their coat rack. Her bags are heavy with clothes and souvenirs. “Wasn't too bad without ol' mom around though... right?"

Otto shakes his head. His voice's a little rough when he says, "It was fine."

"Good!" The door shuts behind them. Her shawl comes off over the table and she tosses herself onto the part of couch he and Viorre were seated on, just hours earlier. She yawns and stretches, burying her face into one of the pillows. "Tell you all about it over Thai tonight. Gonna catch some zzz's."

"...Y-yeah."

As Otto turns to his room, he feels a brush over his shoulders and a kiss placed behind his ear.

It says: “I'll go gentle until then."

\- - -


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Casually alternating between my two fics. As always, mind the tags and enjoy!

The Guide doesn't have much to say on the trip over, its only comment made prior: that it's good to at least try and make a friend or two even if Otto doesn't plan on living much longer to enjoy their company. His life is dull; one screen at school to another at home or on his phone, only punctuated by an interlude to explore some haunted place and maybe run an errand or two on his way back. Just as he could stand to eat better, he could stand to give Viorre something to work with when it finally takes him over. Otto tightens his grip over his phone, glancing downward toward a screenshot of a text conversation.

Mom's focused between the radio and the road, the wind moving their bright, orange hair from the open top of her convertible. His glasses rattle from the bridge of his nose, bouncing as she swings her car too wide or too quickly over the bumps along the suburban road. Sean's place is on the way to zumba she says, cheerfully making a pose— and she has a date with "some of the gals" back at work and then another one later that night with Jim down by the pier. In other words, he has all the time in the world with his new friend and, if he's done before then, he could have Aunt Margot or Dad drive him back. It's in the next town over, further inland, but close enough to the ocean to have apartment complexes named some variation of "sea" "bay" and "breeze," palm trees and hibiscus bushes lining the entrances of each.

Otto never has to explain much of anything even when the car crunches over the asphalt of one with an unfinished backlot and he's never once mentioned Sean. It's like in those true crime videos, kids taken to stranger's houses by overly-trusting parents, only to turn up in a bag or suitcase before they realize what's happened. It's an idle thought that Otto doesn't justify to Viorre because his Guide values his body more than enough to protect the both of them should anything like that happen. Mom grins at him through her gigantic aviators, Otto catching his slumped over reflection in their reflection. "Venmo you some money, k? Don't go too crazy today."

"Okay mom!"

It doesn't matter what happens, he reminds himself. Even if it's the more mundane outcome of Sean realizing Otto's more of a boring nerd than he is online, he has no reason to be nervous. But his grip tightens and he times his steps anyways, unsure if seven minutes early was too early and if it's normal to send a warning text first or to just knock.

He circles around the pool and then up a flight of concrete stairs to the left-most corner of the complex. The walls are thin enough for him to catch the hum of a microwave or talk show, young families minding their kids, laundry, meals for the week. A couple older than Aunt Margot and her husband hose down their dog from their patio, shooting him a dirty look when they notice his staring. It's more tightly packed here than back at home, Otto feeling even more out-of-sorts than usual. He tugs on his backpack and chastises himself for not minding his own business.

Another check of the phone.

Four minutes still too early.

He stands at the door marked "228" in curly metal text, alternating between this and the time.

\--

He presses the doorbell at exactly 3:15. "Just a sec!" and Otto's let in with the kind of flourish he's come to expect of Sean's online persona. Though, Otto admits, the other boy is taller than he'd assumed with a voice that's a few octaves higher as well. He passes through the threshold, spotting the curtains drawn just enough to see the outside world and.

His heart sinks.

From the corner of his eye sits a mini TV, upon which is a live feed of where he was literally just standing. Otto curses himself. _Creepy, awkward_ and _weird_ on top of boring, all in one go.

But, Sean's already talking about something else unrelated: if the drive was far, if he's ever met anyone else in their group chat or not. Otto shakes those thoughts away, reasoning that Sean probably wasn't watching the TV the entire time because who would, right? Still, he could stand to be more careful because it's no wonder no one has ever given him the chance. The backpack comes off where Sean motions and Otto seats himself on the loveseat.

"We live really close," Otto says, catching the soda Sean tosses his way. "Uhm. Near Point Dume."

"Damn, rich boy."

"N-no! Er. It was our grandparents' place. Mom's looking after it because they can't do much of anything lately, and she's saved up a lot after retiring from NASA and the divorce— B-but we aren't rich, I swear! I mean, we're comfortable enough so we aren't poor or anything, but it's no big deal. At least." The pause is enough to send Otto reeling and he punctuates his babble with a mousey "I don't think it is..." shame overcoming him all over again for revealing too much too quickly.

"Nah man, it's cool." Sean leans himself over. "Was just messing with you"

"O-oh. Okay."

\--

The rest of their conversations are stop and go, Viorre feeling more like the passenger of a car with a brake happy driver than it has in the past hour, riding shotgun in Otto's mom's Cadillac.

However poorly he carries himself, Otto _is_ rich.

His room is spacious, a beach view, and holding any and all kinds of books and equipment the boy's ever mentioned a passing interest. Cameras. Light boxes. EVP recorders. Scale models. Viorre'd taken stock of all of his possessions in the first week of its summon, item by item, as well as the details of the family Amazon account, credit card and tax information and the property value of their residence(s).

But, it's been around long enough to know that money can't buy everything. The boy's mind is a constant flux of doubt and self-deprecation, the symbiont carefully examining each neuroticism and commenting on a few strategic ones here and there. Enough to gain his trust, but not so much that Otto is able to doubt that the only solve for all his issues is his beloved Guide for all its promises of peace upon self-annihilation.

It outlines its process like a doctor giving his prognosis: a discovery period followed by one of intermittent possession and then, when the boy is fully ready to commit, a complete and permanent switch. His only question was if it'd hurt, the answer of which was "no" and "only as much as sleeping."

It's gone completely silent today, Viorre withholding its suggestions for a quip or two, and satisfying itself with observation. The new Otto can't appear all at once. He needs to be understood and then reconstructed plank by plank, the changes so subtle that it's impossible to ascertain the start from its end.

Inside is darker than outside, the only source of light a wide, open window with a sky that practically glows blue. Through Otto's eyes, Sean appears as part of a monolith composed of people outside himself and his family— which is to say he's too preoccupied with his own failings to notice the shortcomings of others. The other boy's voice is not only higher but he's thinner as well, with pale, ruddy skin rough with pockmarks. Were it possessing him over his Otto, Viorre would have more work ahead of it; the latter a beauty reminiscent a drowned Ophelia, hidden away in a cliché of hoodies and thick glasses, the former in dire need of retinol and braces.

They move further from that window to a darker space. The Guide feels more at home within its shadows, but it also smells of take-out-- the creature guessing pizza and wings-- only for Otto to trip over an empty Domino’s box. Sean apologizes, kicking it away, some pretentious excuse based on an article he'd found on the topic. "Revenge bedtime procrastination," he says as a matter-of-fact.

"It's like when you're earning a living, working 8 hours a day. Only real freedom's at night, you know?"

Otto doesn't know. He's early to bed and early to rise but he agrees anyways if only to impress a college student with an anime body pillow. The walls are dark ketchup red, covered with posters of series that Otto says he's been meaning to watch but hasn't and won’t, the ceiling in that cottage cheese-style that Viorre finds just as distasteful. It hadn't expected much, but the bed creaks as the boy sits on it, Viorre barely able to hold its cringe.

A chill leeches into their shared mind space. Otto’s breath hitches.

"The file's kinda blurry so I've been trying to convert it to 4k but, since you're here... I figure I'd get your opinion before I waste my time, yeah?" Sean turns on his desk lamp and wheels his chair over the stringy blue carpet.

"Oh, yeah! Sure!"

\--

The blots of green and black come into enough focus as Otto stills the beat of his heart, drawing his hoodie ties over his chest. Viorre’d explained the cold as a side-effect of its presence, nothing to worry about. But, he can guess at the connection, the feeling only making itself apparent when the creature is annoyed, either at him or the circumstances that Otto has gotten them into. Like when he’ll try researching the Guide himself because it’s so quiet that Otto forgets its presence or when he’s gone too long without eating or sleeping.

He shakes it off because it was the Guide’s idea and Sean’s been nice thus far, ignoring the awkward pauses that’ll pass between them, his questions bearing little judgment or expectation. It passes eventually, the boy leaning over from his spot. "Where was this?"

"Back of the Circle K," he says, "Caught it on my way back from con. Swear you'll hear me out?"

Otto shies a bit, the monitor's light catching Sean's face in a cold, almost ominous way. He nods, unsure what else to do. "I posted about it once, but no one's ever believed me. Too many fakers and all."

“Oh yeah?”

“Stuff like that’s been following me for as far back as I can remember. It’s why I’m always carrying this guy with me, just to prove it.” A motion to the camcorder next to a figure in a little red bikini. “But it’s always lighting this, shadows that… blah blah blah. But what people don’t know is that they *do* live in the shadows. It’s what they are.”

Freezeframe. Sean points to the screen’s corner, blowing it up. Beside the trashcan by its entrance is a fuzzy splotch. Two spots near its head could be counted as eyes, or the graininess of night vision. It's hard to tell and Viorre makes no comment to it. “Cool, huh?’

He says it is, caught up in the fluster of the other boy’s excitement.

\--

When Sean runs out of photos, the topic of ghosts moves to the topic of another passion. "Surprised you're still uninitiated," he says. That frown is deep and his arms are crossed dramatically— but, he nods with the same conviction that Otto's come to like just as much as keeping secrets.

"Well count your lucky stars, kid... because I know just the thing to start us off."

A DVD is pulled from the shelf above his desktop, its cover three cartoon figures standing front and center a giant robot. Otto recognizes the girl as the one that's standing beside Sean's camcorder. Sean points to the man on her far left, shirtless and with pointy red sunglasses and blue hair. "That one's me," he says. His finger moves to the one in center. He's shorter than the both of them, grumpy with a blue jacket and red glasses. "And that one’s you."

Otto doesn't see it, but it's nice being a part of something like this too. He barely understands Sean's talk of directors and studios and drills, but he’s assured that the “animation will speak for itself” once it starts.

\--

But the hour _drags_ this time and Otto’s attention’s drifts between the monitor and Sean, the other boy mumbling entire lines here and there in Japanese. They’re a people that live underground, but above-ground is preferred to the extent that Sean’s character would do anything to break surface. Their characters are brothers in the metaphorical sense of the word, perhaps a Japanese thing for Otto to research so he can fully understand the context. The girl and her gun is the true question mark though, annoyed by their presence but not so much that she’d leave them alone. He doesn’t think that one is cultural as it is a quirk of the story medium.

Otto tries to be polite, commenting that Sean "Must've watched this a lot, huh?"

A nod that doesn’t break from the screen. "Yeah, I'm always trying to watch new stuff... but, when something is *this good* it's hard to make time...”

Otto tracks the animated figures as they move from one end of the screen to the next, rocking back and forth from his perch. Sean’s desk is covered with cans of Arizona tea, a few bags of Dorito’s cool ranch surrounding them, and some print-outs of some class syllabi as well. Intro to Computer Science and Japanese 101, just as he’d mentioned over chat. Above that is a shelf with various other figures, and Otto wonders if they’re all from the same show as this one or if he’ll end up watching a new show per model.

His lips purse in spite of himself.

He doesn’t want to be so uninvested, but he also realizes it really isn’t a big deal. He’s done this kind of thing with his granddad before he passed, nodding and smiling as the man explained each stamp of his suitcase-sized collection. At least here there’s more to stare at than paintings of pastel sunsets. He’s made a friend— _a real friend_ — and that’s far more than what he’d expected coming into this.

\--

The end of an episode comes and goes a few more times just as Otto’s done counting the average number of books per Sean’s shelving unit, their respective trances broken. "Crap, totally forgot--” A quick check of his phone. “Told my sis I'd drop something off for her today. Shit. Okay. Well, sorry bud. I’ll make it quick."

"Should I come too?"

"Nah, keep watching, I'll catch up. Panera cool for dinner, though? It's on the way back."

"O-oh! Yeah!"

"Awesome. Text me your order. Be back within the hour."

A quick pat of the head and the door shuts behind him.

Just like that. There’s a moment to twiddle his thumbs before Otto clicks back a couple episodes to reorient himself. The trio's wandering the surface world having since emerged from the underground; but, they're ambushed by a bunch of walking heads because he thinks they aren’t allowed up here. He doesn't understand why they're fighting and shouting so much or how the world's even gotten the way it has... and he tries to watch those few minutes again before pausing the video to send a Venmo and text to Sean.

Otto’s heard about his sister. A lawyer, just like his Aunt Margot, with a penchant for soap-making. She lives pretty far from here if Otto can recall, out on her own with a girlfriend. He continues to scroll idly, finding a Wikipedia article with an episode synopsis, checking his mail and the forum and chat and then the same apps all over again until he finds that he's staring back out into nothing, relieved to be alone again.

\---

The only way these types know how to socialize is selfishly, going on and on about nothing to satisfy the taste of words in their mouths. Annoying but useful in its own way, Otto reacting to a new set of stimuli for Viorre to replicate. He’s a nerd, but not that kind of nerd so it can skip the pretense of familiarizing itself with another useless artifact of human pop culture.

It asks: “Are you having fun, my pet?”

Otto tenses. The Guide revels in the rattle of his thoughts just before they coalesce into an uneasy “Yes,” the boy so quick to forget that it has full access to his feelings, even before he fully understands them. It dissipates, reforming as breathy smoke from behind him. A set of tendrils lift the hem of his sweatshirt, moving the fabric as it gropes his stomach, hips and thighs. He panics and it’s precious. Its little Otto wants it ‘ _but not here_ ,’ and he thinks to tell the Guide off but knows it’s been awhile since he’s let it have its way.

And, he knows how it gets when he doesn’t listen. He’s felt it earlier, down to his very core. Again, it picks and chooses what it responds to.

“You don’t have to lie to me. I know what you’d much rather do.”

The mirror stretches from the floor to the closet railing, more than big enough to show the both of them. It wobbles as Otto is urged forward, his arms moved to anchor his weight. The boy isn’t ready for a full possession just yet, Viorre presenting these nudges as suggestions for his compliance. And he does, because he’s so pathetic—desperate enough for attention that a weird, boring nerd is the best he’ll get when it comes to friends, and this is the best when it comes to affection.

It leans over him, the silhouette no one Otto recognizes in particular. Could be a bartender. A PE teacher. Another one of his mother’s boyfriends.

“Twenty minutes” it hums, gripping his hips. “That’s plenty of time to make you cum.”

\--

The stutter is something he could make the boy "grow out of" a few months post-possession. Feigning awkwardness is also a chore, especially when his charge presents such latent potential-- not only in his face, but that pale, touch-starved body.

Otto whines in protest as its hand squeezes his cock, waves of pleasure coursing from up his stomach down to the curl of his toes. It brings their hips closer by that hand, the other set of fingers pressing past his lips to suck.

Viorre had wanted to test the boy's conviction last month just as much as it'd wanted to see him taken by larger, rougher, more experienced partners, eager to mark their territory. Spoiling him, protecting him, just as well.

Humans are borne from molds, remixes of same ten songs. Again, the Guide understands this because it's lived longer than any of them will, has seen enough lifetimes to understand the motions necessary to optimize quality of health, relationships and finances based on stocks of appearance and talent. Viorre becomes its host but better. So much better than no one could ever miss what they were prior to meeting it.

The hand over his face brings his jaw up, forcing his eyes to meet their reflection. Otto’s vision is blurry, the creature having set his glasses aside, but the effect still lands— because there, in perfect detail, the Guide can appreciate the way Otto’s skin deepens with a blush, spreading out from his cheeks down his neck. Can see how Otto’s eyes flicker to the hand over his cock, to Viorre’s shadow before sliding off somewhere else, unable to focus.

It’s a good look for him, Viorre pumps him as it grinds up to his bare ass, the mirror shaking from their movement. When the Guide is through with him, Otto will make a fine pet, a decadence for only the worthiest to enjoy.

He’s stilled, forced to content himself with the image the Guide presents him.

Yielding. Pliant. _Obscene._

“I could take you here,” the Guide says, echoing the tone of all his future lovers. “Fuck you dry and leave what’s left for him to find.”

A moan reverberates from the boy’s throat to the palm of its hand, Viorre thumbing the head of his cock. He’s gotten further along with someone than he ever has in his life and the idea of fucking it up now seems so much of a waste that Otto can’t stand it.

But he’s also so close, his body, his mind submitting itself to its touch, the promise of release so much that it bypasses shame.

\--

Otto slumps.

It doesn’t go all the way because it respects Otto enough to withdraw before it gets too far, and the Guide can be demanding but never so much that Otto can’t handle its requests, if only he’d push himself a little to work with it. His knees buckle as he finds a tissue to clean himself up, dazed and out-of-sorts, his hair and clothes a mess from Viorre’s rough handling. It’s just as he hears the rustle of paper bags set to the kitchen counter that he pulls himself together, Sean calling him out for dinner.

"We'll continue when we're home," it promises, a light pat over his ass.

He nods, managing a smile to Sean who apologizes for taking longer than he intended and if his parents were alright with him spending the night, because it’s dawned on him that they could also start another show… this one who is also about a boy that goes to a school for heroes. Viorre says nothing else, so Otto agrees to it, if only to convince himself that he enjoys Sean’s company even if he knows he’s like this. Even if he knows it’s all completely pointless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Otto doesn't like anime, unfortunately : (

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for getting this far! Future chapters to include a lot of introspection and also more shape-shifting fun.


End file.
